Pedrosa Has Successful Surgery

Henny Ray Abrams | October 2, 2010

MOTEGI, JAPAN, OCT 3 – Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa underwent successful surgery to plate his broken left collarbone, but the team and his doctors refused to set a timetable for his possible return to racing.Pedrosa fractured his collarbone when the throttle on his RC212V malfunctioned during Friday free practice at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit, Honda’s home track. The collarbone was fractured in three places and Pedrosa returned to Spain on Friday night. The two-hour operation was performed Saturday by Dr. Xavier Mir at the Dexeus University Institute Hospital in Barcelona.”The operation went very well,” Dr. Mir said. “Dani had a fragment chip fracture of the left collarbone and, together with Doctors Marlet and Ginebrada, we have performaed a fixation with a titanium plate, made especially for the collarbone. We have fixed the two intermediate fragments with two compression screws.Initial reports were that Pedrosa may have also damaged his left ankle, but that wasn’t the case. The ankle suffered nothing more than a sprain.”Regarding the left ankle, while in surgery we performed another x-ray and saw that we were dealing with a grade 1 ankle sprain, which will heal in a short space of time.Pedrosa is expected to remain in the hospital for a day or two, “after which time, if all goes well, we may begin rehabilitation. At this time, it is not possible to give precise dates for recovery.”Pedrosa will miss almost certainly miss next weekend’s Malaysia Grand Prix, where Fiat Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo should clinch the 2010 MotoGP World Championship. If Lorenzo finishes first or second in today’s Japanese Grand Prix, and Pedrosa fails to show up in Sepang, the premier class title will go back to Spain for the first time since Alex Criville won the 500cc crown in 1999.